Just the other day, my 18 year old daughter was driving our minivan when she merged into a space that someone else felt he was destined for, and when he didn’t get it, he must have become considerably angry. He followed my daughter off the highway, and when she stopped at a traffic light, he hurled a water bottle at the car along with a barrage of profanity before speeding off.

Fortunately, that was the end the situation. She told me how scared she was, but knew not to yell back because it would just make things worse. She was right. It was my daughter’s first experience with road rage, and I'm afraid it won't be her last.

The episode really had me thinking about the whole idea of road rage. I thought about a skirmish between my younger boys a few years ago.

“That’s what three year olds do,” I had told my then six year old son, “they destroy cites.”
He had just completed the infrastructure of a Lego urban center on the floor of his bedroom when his little brother went in and Godzillaed the place.

When I asked his little brother why he had done such a destructive act, he said it was because his big brother was being mean to him.

“I wasn’t being mean,” the six year old immediately protested. “He wanted the pieces I was using, and when I wouldn’t give them to him he messed everything up.”

I knew right away what had happened.

Lego rage: a temper tantrum that occurs quite often when the siblings play together. Oh, things start out peaceful enough, but inevitably blocks will be disputed, building plans disregarded and cities destroyed.

And now t'is the season for holiday rage, where jammed parking lots, crowded malls, long lines, limited time and high expectations turn frustration and fatigue into all out anger.

Fighting for parking spots, stampeding into stores, playing tug-of-war over the toy du jour, and lambasting the temporary holiday help for not serving them before the hundreds of people who had been waiting longer gives the line “Christmas makes you feel emotional” new meaning.

While I can understand the causes, it is the diagnosis I have trouble with.

To get to a local shopping mall, there is a notorious exit ramp with long back ups. While most people get into the exit lane and wait their turn, there is always one or two who will speed up to the front of the line and worm their way in slowing the rest of us down even more. As annoying as that can be, it’s not nearly as bad as the one car that flies past everyone on the shoulder the entire length of the exit ramp.

Does this tick people off? Does this make you want to rile up the rest of the commuters, form a posse, and go after the scofflaw? Of course it does.

But most rational thinking people do not act upon these fleeting fantasies.

What we call road rage or holiday rage is really nothing more than a three-year-oldesque temper tantrum.

Perhaps a part of the problem is that we enable these purveyors of public outbursts by calling it rage.

Let’s face it, rage can be cool. We can rage against the machine, or we can rage, rage against the dying of the light. Road rage is something you can tattoo on your arm under a car with mean eyes for headlights, pointy fangs for the front grill, and paws with sharp claws for tires.

Therefore, we must change the terminology to something just a little more humiliating. We should hereafter refer to any display of ranting and/or raving, regardless of cause – be it holiday madness, discourteous drivers, fifteen item holders in the ten item only line – as it really is: a hissy fit.

The phrase which may have originated from a description of the hissing of a cat or a contraction of the word “hysterical,” carries a much less menacing weight, and therefore could act as more of a deterrent.

Imagine a simple modification of verbiage and a holding cell conversation will sound pretty different: “I crushed a man’s skull with my bare hands when he looked the wrong way at me girlfriend. What are you in for?” “Oh, I threw a hissy fit on the freeway.”

Whether it's road, holiday, or Lego, experiencing rage is serious and could lead to dangerous results. We must be mindful not to stoke the fire by answering rage with rage.

So the next time someone cuts you off, steals the parking spot you had been waiting for for thirty minutes, or runs ahead of you when a new register opens, be thankful. That person is probably having a worse day than you.